With that, Axiom responded instantly.

Space folded.

The world inverted for a fraction of a second, and then…

Bruce and Ash were expelled from the Labyrinth.

The pressure vanished.

The cold, mana-rich air of Velmora rushed in, familiar and grounding, filling Bruce's lungs as reality snapped back into place.

Ash landed beside him and let out a lazy yawn, stretching its wings slightly as black scales caught the ambient light. Upon seeing the familiar skyline and distant structures of Velmora, the dragon cub relaxed instinctively, tail swaying idly as if nothing of note had happened.

Bruce, however, didn't even get a chance to breathe.

BEEP! BEEP!! BEEP!!!

A sharp, shrill alarm erupted from his ThornTech smart bracelet.

Red light pulsed violently from the pinhole along its side, flashing in rapid intervals as warning glyphs spiraled across the holographic surface, overlapping one another in frantic succession.

Bruce's heart skipped.

Then slammed hard against his ribs.

The unsettling feeling that had lingered in his chest surged instantly, exploding into something far more violent and unmistakable.

"…No."

He didn't hesitate.

Bruce tapped the bracelet.

The hologram snapped open mid-stride, projecting a crimson alert panel into the air, its sharp edges flickering with urgency.

[⚠ EMERGENCY DUNGEON ALERT ⚠]

[Classification: S-RANKED DUNGEON OUTBREAK]

[Status: ACTIVE]

[Threat Level: EXTREME]

[Location: Aurelion Ward, East Valkrin Kingdom]

[Zone Type: Academy District]

[Details:]

[- Sudden spatial rupture detected]

[- Monster breach in progress]

[- Civilian evacuation incomplete]

Bruce's pupils shrank.

'Aurelion Ward. The academy district.'

His breath caught in his throat.

His eyes snapped to the next line as the panel scrolled automatically, the words burning themselves into his vision.

Proximity Warning:

[- Awakening Academy]

[- Registered students within danger radius: Multiple]

Bruce's heart thumped violently, each beat echoing in his ears.

'Lily.'

"She's still in school…" he muttered under his breath, fingers tightening until the bracelet creaked faintly under the pressure.

He swiped the panel aside roughly.

"How long," he demanded, voice tight and controlled by sheer force of will, "since the dungeon outbreak?"

There was no emotion in the response.

Just cold, mechanical efficiency.

[Five minutes.]

The AI voice echoed softly from the bracelet's pinhole speaker.

Five minutes.

Bruce's blood ran cold.

"Damn it!"

Mana detonated beneath his feet.

The ground cratered as Bruce launched forward, stone pulverizing as his body blurred into a streak of compressed air. Ash's eyes widened for a split second before instinct kicked in. Its wings snapped open as it surged after him, claws tearing grooves into the ground as it took off.

But Bruce was already gone.

Vanishing from that location in the next second, sprinting with insane speed toward Aurelion Ward.

Toward the academy.

Toward Lily.

…

Meanwhile, at the Main Adventurer Base.

Bale stood at the center of the command floor, one hand raised slightly as he issued orders through his smart bracelet, fingers flicking through holographic prompts only he could see.

"Squad Twelve, fall back three streets and hold the choke point. Don't chase."

"Medic teams, rotate now. Prioritize students first."

"Keep the perimeter tight. Do not let any beast slip toward the academy grounds."

His voice was calm and measured, every command delivered with precision, but beneath it ran a tightness that only those who knew him well could hear.

In front of him, multiple holographic screens floated in midair, forming a semi-circle that wrapped around his field of vision. Each display showed a different battlefield feed, streets ripped open by mana detonations, flashes of steel and spellfire, buildings half-collapsed under repeated clawed impacts.

The footage was unstable.

Shaking visuals. Distorted angles. Audio cutting in and out beneath the roar of combat.

All of it streamed directly from the pinhole cameras embedded in the smart bracelets of active adventurers, raw and unfiltered.

A beast lunged across one screen, forcing the camera to jerk violently before the feed stabilized again, dark blood splattering across the lens as the adventurer barely held their ground.

On another, an adventurer was hurled into a storefront wall, glass exploding outward as he slammed through it, coughing violently before forcing himself back to his feet.

Bale's eyes never stopped moving.

They swept from screen to screen, scanning, assessing, calculating, committing every detail to memory in real time.

This was chaos, but controlled chaos.

As long as he had eyes everywhere, as long as information kept flowing, he could still manage it.

That was the only reason civilian casualties hadn't skyrocketed already.

"Reinforcement teams, stagger your entry," Bale ordered. "Don't bunch up. These beasts are adapting faster than expected."

A low hum filled the command floor as more feeds came online, new windows slotting into place around the others.

Then…

Footsteps.

Lucen approached quickly from the side, expression grave enough to cut through the noise and tension of the room.

"Bale," he said, lowering his voice slightly, "Bruce is back online."

Bale's hand paused mid-motion.

"…He got the message?"

Lucen nodded. "No delay. The alert reached him immediately he got back."

Bale exhaled sharply through his nose and clenched his jaw, the tension finally leaking through his composed exterior.

"This just had to happen at the worst possible time…" he muttered.

His gaze returned to the screens, eyes hardening.

The dungeon outbreak was bad.

Too bad.

"This S-Ranked dungeon," Bale continued, voice dropping lower, "it's strange."

He zoomed in on one feed with a flick of his fingers.

A group of S-Ranked adventurers were locked in combat with a cluster of beasts, wolves, but wrong. Their frames were thicker than normal, muscle packed unnaturally dense. Their movements were sharp, coordinated, almost tactical. Wounds that should have crippled them were already knitting back together mid-fight.

"Even with all available adventurers called to duty," Bale said slowly, "things are getting out of hand."

Lucen frowned. "Too many?"

"Too fast," Bale corrected without hesitation.

He switched feeds again.

Another squad was retreating, disciplined, controlled, covering one another as they fell back, but the pressure was obvious, the beasts pressing them relentlessly.

"This doesn't feel like a normal S-Ranked outbreak," Bale went on. "The dungeon stabilized too quickly. The spawn rate is inconsistent, but the beasts coming out are a bit strange."

Lucen's eyes narrowed. "Strange?"

Bale didn't reply. Even he himself didn't understand this feeling, this feeling of foreboding.

Silence settled between them, heavy and uncomfortable.

Bale's fingers tightened slightly as another alert blinked across one of the screens.

An adventurer went down.

Not dead, but barely holding on, mana levels plunging into the danger zone.

"And the worst part," Bale added quietly, eyes hard as steel, "is the location."

Lucen didn't need to ask.

The academy district loomed on every map overlay, highlighted in warning red.

Students. Trainees. Unawakened civilians.

Bale ground his teeth.

"This couldn't have happened at a worse time."

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